06-10-09

A big thanks to all of you who came to our show at The Paradise in Boston last Friday night. It was so great to see so many familiar faces singing along to the new songs as well as the old standbys. We hope you had a good night and we promise there will be more shows to come soon.

Well, we are writing on the eve of the release of Stay Epic, our 4th full-length album, and our audio dispatch to simply live life to the fullest! Stay Epic hits stores tomorrow, Tuesday October 6, and no matter where you hang your hat, we've made it easy and affordable for you to pick-up a copy, or two.You can buy the physical CD version of at any Newbury Comics store location and if you print this coupon, you can buy Stay Epic for special price of only $5.99.Or you can buy it at Newbury Comics online at Newburycomics.com.

If should be noted, that due to the lacking demand for the CD format, the crack product development team at Lunch Records have made the CD version of Stay Epic well, a little extra epic by including four bonus acoustic songs. It's cool, trust us.For those of you who enjoy living in the digital age, you can buy the (10 song) digital version of Stay Epic on iTunes, and while your there you can to browse other Dear Leader digital only releases.

We plan on playing more shows this year to support Stay Epic and, if you would like us to come play your city, just drop us an email at: info@lunchrecords.com and we'll see what our schedule looks like.

Since your receiving this email, you're now on the new and improved Dear Leader email list which will enable you to receive more free downloads and be the first to know about new shows.

Lastly, we can't thank you enough for the support you have given us throughout the years on both sides of the pond. It's hard to believe that we've been playing shows and making records for 6+ years. We went from The Good Times Are Killing Me to All I Ever Wanted Was Tonight to The Alarmist to Stay Epic.

04-10-09

Op 2 oktober heeft de Band in The Paradise zijn nieuwe CD voorgesteld.

EMPIRESBARBARIANSNIGHTMARE ALLEYSTHE BLUEPRINTEVERYONE LOOKS BETTER IN THE DARKSHIMMERRADARNAPOLEON COMPLEXINDIFFERENCE IN THE AGE OF DECLINETHE WAYSIDEHEART HANGS LOWMY LIFE AS A WRESTLERBILLION SERVEDRAGING RED

encores:

Ready the Brave (aaron solo)Believer (aaron solo) *brought the f**king house downcorroded anchor - Full band Labor On - Full band

01-02-09

On Friday, January 16, Dear Leader will descend upon the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, bearing post-holiday gifts of rock excellence for the masses, along with Hallelujah The Hills and Faces on Film. This is certainly an event not to be missed by anyone who has ever enjoyed live rock music. It just may even be an event not to be missed by anyone with a functioning sense of hearing.

In honor of the upcoming show, I recently had the opportunity to pull up a virtual seat with one of Boston’s most talented drummers, Dear Leader’s own Paul Buckley.

You just might have heard of this guy before. It turns out, he’s everywhere.

Buckley’s resume is extensive, which is not surprising, since he proudly boasts he’s a workaholic. Now a staple in the Boston indie music scene, he began releasing records in the early 90’s on his indie label, Lunch Records, having had little luck getting his first band signed in the vast, overpopulated wasteland of Boston indie bands.

I asked Buckley about the origins of the label, particularly its original name, Breakfast Records. The name change seemed to imply to me an evolution – perhaps a maturing of the label over time.

“When I released Orbit’s first 7″ single ‘Motorama’ [in 1994], we got a glowing review in Magnet Magazine, which triggered a nasty letter to the editor from another Breakfast Records.” Buckley explained. “This was also around the time that 6 major labels wanted to sign Orbit, so to avoid any legal problems I changed the name to the next possible name, Lunch Records…while traveling back from a show in New York.”

Orbit came to be in the early 90’s after Buckley was approached (while broadcasting live on Mass Ave for WFNX) by Jeff Robbins. After a few jam sessions and a free ad in the Boston Phoenix, Wally Gagel joined the cause, offering to record for the newly-forming band. With the addition of Mark Brookner on bass, Orbit recorded their first EP, “La Mano”. Gagel would eventually reconsider his early pass on playing bass for the band, and joins them on their 1997 A&M release, “Libido Speedway”.

Eventually, Buckley’s path would cross that of Aaron Perrino, when Perrino’s former band The Sheila Divine opened for Orbit at a 1998 gig in Burlington, Vermont. Impressed, Buckley offered to manage the band and even filled in on drums for some live shows while TSD looked for a replacement for Shawn Sears (which they would ultimately find in Ryan Dolan). After the split of The Sheila Divine in April 2003, Buckley encouraged Perrino to make a solo record, which Buckley offered to release on Lunch.

Perrino quickly went to work recording six tracks which featured Buckley on the drums, later to be released as the 2003 EP ‘War Chords’ (recorded by Darren Ottaviani with additional production and mixing by John Dragonetti).

“Aaron chose friends Jon Sulkow (of the band Tugboat Annie) and Will Claflin (of the band Cheerleadr) and asked me to fill in on drums as they audition new drummers,” Buckley explained. “He didn’t want to bother me as I just became a dad of twin daughters 18 months prior. After three shows together, I was really feeling the chemistry, and then Aaron asked that I join on.”

Since then, Dear Leader has released three full-length records and a split EP with fellow Lunch-mates Taxpayer, which was released in the summer of 2007. The gents are currently hard at work in the studio working on their fourth full-length release, to be released later this year on Lunch.

It would seem to be any music fan’s dream to walk a mile in Buckley’s shoes – aside from being a part of one of the freshest and hottest indie bands to come out of Boston since 1993, there are some perks to running your own label.

“All the artists on Lunch have been hand picked by myself and they’ve all been committed to their art,” said Buckley, when asked about his own musical influences. “I’ve tried to do my best throughout the years to deal with the commerce side, so they can just create.”

And his best is truly paying off. In February, Lunch artist Taxpayer is slated to release their second full-length, ‘Don’t Steal My Night Vision’, produced by Paul Kolderie. Kolderie has also produced the Dear Leader albums ‘All I Ever Wanted Was Tonight’ and ‘The Alarmist.’

“I think people are really going to be shocked at the song writing and playing growth on this record,” Buckley reflected. “It’s sort of a classic record, in a Queen sort of way, lots of emotion. You’re gonna love it!”

Truly a success story in the realm of self-starters and entrepreneurs, Buckley’s talent and expertise has given Boston’s indie scene the Midas touch. With Lunch artists like The Shods, Helicopter Helicopter and Rockets to Mars, it certainly seems that whatever Buckley touches turns into a brilliant slice of fried gold. I asked Buckley what advice he’d offer to bands that may be just starting out and feeling lost in the shuffle.

“Make art and put it out there for people to hear, see, and feel it, and make sure you’re enjoying the process. If you’re not, it’s probably not going to work.”

So if you haven’t done so already, be sure to grab your tickets for Friday’s Dear Leader show at the Paradise before they’re all gone (which I am sure they will be soon), as it promises, as usual, to be a night to remember. And be sure to keep an eye out for the upcoming Taxpayer release next month, which is shaping up to kick copious amounts of behind, all the while taking names.

Dear Leader rises up, with feeling

The drama began and ended with that voice wrapping itself around the songs, enveloping them completely even as it thrust them skyward, holding them to the light. You could have called the voice a force of nature or an emotional lightning rod that, when it struck, froze listeners in their tracks, and seized them. It was something that the people who packed the Paradise were drawn to hear, no matter what song it was singing.

The voice belonged to singer Aaron Perrino, late of the mercurially melodramatic Sheila Divine, and for the last five years and three albums, frontman of Dear Leader, a Somerville-based outfit also given to anthems about hiding in daylight and living in the dark corners of the mind. Friday night's show featured standout performances not only from the evening's headliners, but from Hallelujah the Hills and Faces on Film, two remarkably distinct up-and-coming outfits that together constituted a heady example of Boston's most promising bands.

But this was Dear Leader's night, and the band did not disappoint. The foursome, which also included guitarist Will Claflin, bassist Jon Sulkow, and drummer Paul Buckley, is at work on its fourth album. Judging from the handful of bracing new tunes previewed - the twin epics "Dark Confessions" and "Heart Hangs Low" among them - Perrino's preoccupations of the head and heart haven't shifted dramatically in the two-plus years since Dear Leader's last album, "The Alarmist."

When it is done sincerely and well, pop music can always use a larger-than-life meditation on the smallness of being alone, or the struggle for connection in a crowded room. Perrino, bespectacled and bookish, with the look of a guy picked last for dodgeball in middle school, has never been afraid to write those kinds of searching songs, or sing them.

So the U2-ish "Everyone Looks Better in the Dark" (truth be told, not a few of Dear Leader's songs suggest the work of U2, Perrino's biggest influence) was a tender tornado, gathering momentum with each verse. The encore-closing "Labor On" was similarly lovely, a quietly anguished lament that built and crested, inexorably as so many of Dear Leader's songs do, to a majestic climax.

Preceding Dear Leader Friday night was the six-piece Hallelujah the Hills, led by singer-guitarist Ryan Walsh. Accented by cello and brass, HTH delivered a dynamically charged set of literate indie rock that filtered the free-associative wordplay of Guided By Voices through the antediluvian old-time feel of the Decemberists. Although the band opened with an out-of-tune rendering of Petula Clark's "Downtown" that proved a misstep, it soon headed for the hills and never looked back.

Faces on Film, led by singer-guitarist Mike Fiore, kicked up dust and diamonds with a set of stark, spooky, and altogether sparkling Gothic folk songs designed to unnerve. Both plan and execution worked magnificently well.

11-09-08

I just wanted to let everyone know that Dear Leader is playing Two shows on September 26th and 27th at TT the Bear's. We haven't played in so long and it will be great to get back on stage after the Belgian debockle.

Oh right Belgium...So let's just say I'm not going to be going back there for a while. Sorry to my Belgian friends who have been nothing but awesome and kind. Belgium was a disaster for me and my family as we were taken through the ringer of Visa, Apartment, and other Cultural issues that made me realize that my home is in Boston. I am glad to have experienced delicious Butter, Bread, and wine..I am glad to be home and ready for the new beginning..Big news to follow in the coming weeks...

23-08-08

the sound: Singer Aaron Perrino’s voice has a Morrisey-esque timbre and his band’s songs are reminiscent of “The Bends”-era Radiohead, with strong and similar lyrics. On a smaller scale, The Sheila Divine pulls together tight, guitar-driven songs about life and love. The album’s opening track, “Automatic Buffalo,” is a solid rock song that ends with a rousting chorus of “automatic buffalo.” (Don’t ask, we don’t know what that means.) “I’m a Believer” beats The Monkees’ song of the same title, starting slowly and building to a screechy cry for love: “To my surprise / I’m hypnotized / by the sight of flesh / and the scent of skin. / Give me a chance.” The album’s best track, “Opportune Moment,” predates and outshines any Killers “losing the girl” song: “I call her (ring, ring), she’s not there. / At the opportune moment / she tells me (fling, fling), ‘I kissed him.’ / Now it’s out into the open. / I go out (drinks, drinks), I can’t stay in.” Rocking, jangly fun all around.

the background: In 1997, The Sheila Divine began as many Boston bands do, playing downstairs at The Middle East, pushing a five-song EP at Newbury Comics (later re-recorded and lengthened to become “New Parade”) and getting coverage on WFNX and WBCN. By the time “New Parade” rolled around, the band had a loyal following, helping the album’s first single, “Hum,” become a nation-wide college radio hit. The Sheila Divine is not necessarily for the happy set, which isn’t always a bad thing. Plenty of bands have made it big on the sad sack image. The group’s name does mean “sacred wimp,” after all, a sentiment perhaps best embodied in the album’s tiny, twinkly last song, “Sweep the Leg,” a reference to one of the 1980s favorite lovesick losers, The Karate Kid.

the significance: The Sheila Divine paved the way for bands like The Killers. While the songs are thick with sound, they are self-depreciative and wonderful, full of sarcasm and snarky observations about implants and The Spice Girls. But the band was perhaps a bit too early for its time, or possibly immediately dated. While “New Parade” and The Sheila Divine achieved modest success, the band’s second album did not fare as well, and the group broke up in 2003. Singer Perrino went on to form Dear Leader, which, thankfully, sounds an awful lot like The Sheila Divine.